It feels ungrateful to berate a band for making music which you like over and over again but here we are. When Insomnium released Across the Dark, it seemed as if the band were bent on forging their own paths. Even though, later on, Shadows of the Dying Sun further cemented their supremacy within their niche, there were some (like me) who wished they would keep exploring and mutating their…
Photo (From Left): Trent Bos, Eden Kupermintz, and Simon Clark at ArcTanGent 2019. I’ve been to many a festival in my “career” as a metalhead. Hellfest, Brutal Assault, Download, Graspop and more have all been graced by my frowns, interrupted sleep, and abhorrent amounts of alcohol. What I’ve learned over…
Editor’s Note: I’m glad to welcome longtime reader Remi VL as a regular guest contributor to our Release Day Roundup posts! He submitted several of the albums listed below. Join his Facebook group for more recommendations. -Scott Murphy Each month, we always seem to come to the same conclusion when it comes to…
How excited am I about this album? So excited that I’m running this review several weeks before it’s released, just to make sure you’re all paying attention. With Neuroteque Juggernaut have done the seemingly impossible (or, at least, very rare) and injected post-metal with groove and a light step. Weird,…
Is there anything better than finding exactly what you’ve been looking for? Not in the “I lost my keys and I need to drop everything to track them down before I totally lose my mind” sense, but rather the fortuitous, dumb luck kind. The kind where the journey isn’t really a journey at all, but the eventual of discovering said thing becomes this weird little point of pride for you, even though you didn’t put much effort into it? Whether it’s a tasty burrito in a nearby neighborhood, a perfect piece of furniture, or a sweet bin find at your…
Short bursts of off-kilter aggression have yet to go out of style for me. As much as I’ve gravitated toward…
Whenever I put a new record on for the first time, there’s always a thought that comes in my head…
Driving home from Whitby in North Yorkshire on a gloriously sunny Sunday was definitely a strange time to channel cyberpunk beats and severe monastic soundscapes through my sun-baked earholes. But, combining what initially seem like opposed and contrasting musical environments can often lead to weird and wonderful states of mind, as I would soon discover with Teeth Of The Sea’s consuming and hypnotic 2019 release Wraith. I thought it would be appropriate to begin with that anecdote because it encapsulates the method by which Wraith evokes mood. Contrast. The familiar and the unfamiliar. Have you ever coasted through a whole…
Burlington, Vermont has long held the identity of a jam band town to people outside of the state who know…
Politics aside, there’s a lot that’s going right in the UK right now, musically at least. The North of the…
Car Bomb have always been on the cutting edge, but since their 2012 revival w^w^^w^w, they’ve held a special place within the metal community that’s only grown with each record, particularly reaching new heights on 2016’s Meta, which was our album of the year. Hopes are always high for Car Bomb, and here we are with Mordial.
Crashdïet have had a hard time since spear-heading the Swedish sleaze rock revival in the early 2000s. With five studio…
Drag has always been a subversive and primarily underground art form, that has a long history with heavy metal and…
There’s a building outside of my apartment which haunts me. It’s positioned in a way that provides for maximum impact during both the day and the night. It towers over a usual path that I take. During the day, it is brimming with the potential of a hundred or so lives being lived, like a spaceship cutting its way through space, its denizens set to colonize some far-off planet with the detritus of their lives. By night, the building holds a million secrets, collecting in corners not quite fully light by failing lights, hints of emotions and personal stories all…
